There’s a cupboard in Ross Lewis’s kitchen that contains a very sophisticated stereo system , an extensive music collection (lots of Van Morrison), and a selection of top shelf liquor – you could call it the party cupboard.
Lewis, chef patron at Chapter One restaurant, is originally from Cork and has lived in the house in Blackrock, Co Dublin for 14 years with his wife Jessica, and it’s also home to their three daughters Molly, Eabha and Sheana.
“This part of the house is all new. We had a very large garden and a small house,” he says. Kenny Kane Associates did the architectural work on the entension, but the kitchen is very much Lewis’s domain. “We wanted to bring as much light into it as we could so we lit it from the back [via a glass wall] and from the front with a big skylight. We wanted a nice open plan.”
The kitchen has a masculine feel to it, an observation that Lewis agrees with. But it’s his wife who uses it most. “Jessica does the cooking at home. I cook when we’re having people in, just because it takes me far less time. I cook on a Sunday night or a Monday night; we go out one night and cook the other.”
The kitchen is dominated by a central island fitted with a row of Gaggenau appliances – five gas hobs, a cooking plate or plancha and a big oven. “I really wanted good high-powered gas hobs and to be honest they’re fantastic, they’re not far off what you’d have in a commercial kitchen. The oven is great, you can put a stone in the bottom to cook pizzas, and it takes a fair sized turkey. What’s nice about them is they can be closed off and it’s nice and neat.”
Apart from the cooker, the rest of the kitchen appliances are integrated and hidden behind handsome walnut cupboards made by Andrew Ryan Kitchens in Gorey. The worktop is an unusual dark brown granite, and amirror wall behind the Belfast sink bounces light back in from the garden.
Andrew Ryan also made the chunky butcher’s block – a feature that Lewis is particularly fond of. “I love it, we use it for a multitude of things. I love that it’s a nice handsome big piece of wood, integrated.”
The Lewis kitchen is microwave-free. “I don’t love them in the sense of all that radiation and stuff and I just decided not to put one in. But there were definitely days when I’d have liked one . . . they’re very handy when you’ve small kids and you’re making purees and porridges.”
Is there anything he’d do differently? “Possibly make the spaces a bit smaller between the cupboards and the island; the gaps are big. And like every house, lots more storage.”
Ross Lewis is joint-owner and head chef at Chapter One, Dublin 1
